Prometheus 6

Christopher Cooper, J.D., Ph.D. & Attorney at Law
Director, Saint Xavier University Center for Conflict Resolution

KATRINA AFTERMATH, RACE & ACADEMICS
COPYRIGHT © 2005   

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has meticulously showed the racial divide between blacks and whites in the United States. Ours is a country in which scientific poll after poll show that black American people say they experience racism routinely at the hands of many (not all) white American people; but many white people overwhelmingly assert that racism is a phenomenon of the past. In other words, Hurricane Katrina forces people who have long denied that there is great race-based interpersonal conflict between whites and blacks in the United States to accept that such a phenomenon is real. As a black man I write this essay with frustration. My frustration, directed at the field of Criminology & Criminal Justice of which I am a part.